Bringing Policy Support from Trusted Messengers to Congress
This training explains how to identify and engage community leaders who are especially influential on their members of Congress. These leaders are called trusted messengers. This training also explains how to work with a trusted messenger to customize CCL’s editable template policy support letter and the best way to deliver the completed and signed letter to Congress.
Grassroots vs. Grasstops
When we do grassroots outreach, we’re engaging everyday constituents, people in the district who have a normal amount of influence on their members of Congress. When we do grasstops outreach, we’re engaging people and organizations in the community that represent the views of many constituents and are especially influential on their members of Congress.
Business owners, local elected officials, large local employers, faith leaders and instructors are some examples of community leaders who have an outsize influence.
What is a "trusted messenger"
A trusted messenger is a community leader who is a key figure in the MOC’s district or state who has views and opinions that are trusted by the MOC. Trusted messengers often have a personal connection to the MOC in some way, for example they might belong to the same political party, live in the same city, have similar career backgrounds or something else.
For our purposes, we engage trusted messengers to convey messages that will resonate with their MOC.
When making a list of trusted messengers, it’s a good idea to prioritize your local elected officials because they often know their MOCs personally, they move in the same circles, they may have worked together and because your local elected officials are relatively easy for you to meet with.
Why get a policy support letter from a trusted messenger?
The CCL Government Affairs team recommends that chapters work to secure at least one letter from a trusted messenger to their member of Congress (MOC) and deliver the letter in an upcoming lobby meeting. Bringing a policy support letter from a trusted messenger to a lobby meeting is a great way to get the attention of the congressional office, may help to move the MOC up the policy support ladder and could help to steer your lobby meeting.
How to identify local trusted messengers
Following are research steps that you can use to identify local trusted messengers.
- CCL Liaisons know their MOCs well and have often worked with them for years. Ask your local liaisons who their MOC listens to in the district. It might be a business owner, CEO, faith leader, trade organization or large local employer.
- Ask your fellow volunteers who they know who has a personal connection to their member of congress. It might be:
- Someone who went to the same college or belongs to the same faith organization
- Someone who worked with the member in a career before congress
- Someone who sits on the same board of directors or belongs to the same service organization
- Consult reputable local sources of news and information on large employers and industries.
Learn about your member of Congress to help identify their trusted messengers
Your time is limited and precious so start your MOC research at the places listed below where you can find reliable info.
- CCL congressional bios at cclusa.org/bios
- The MOC’s campaign website. These websites are only updated during campaign season, but they contain a wealth of information. Look for people who endorsed the candidate in the campaign and people who appear in campaign photos alongside the candidate. These may be trusted messengers. The campaign website may also describe top industries, economic drivers and job creators in the district.
- Review the MOC’s congressional website at last_name.house.gov or last_name.senate.gov. Press releases, caucus memberships, legislation activity and events may lead you to trusted messengers in the district.
- MOC social media accounts.
- govtrack.us which provides information on MOCs including:
- Their committees
- Their enacted legislation
- The bills they’ve sponsored
- Their voting record
Use our editable policy support template letter
CCL’s editable policy support template letter is available at cclusa.org/template-letter. When you are ready, work with your trusted messenger to customize the template letter to include a message that will resonate with their MOC. See the letter template page for instructions.
Delivering the trusted messenger's letter to Congress
Once the trusted messenger has printed the letter on letterhead and signed it, work with the CCL liaison to plan to deliver the letter to Congress. The best time to deliver the letter is during a lobby meeting so that you or someone on your team can hand over the letter personally, highlight the described climate impacts and discuss the importance of the trusted messenger’s policy support.
Should I include a community leader on my lobby team?
Trusted messengers and trusted organizations can amplify our asks to Congress in a lobby meeting.
Make a list of the community leaders in your district who are trusted messengers (defined above) to your MOC. You should include on your lobby team one of these trusted messengers if they, (1) can substantially help to increase the MOC's enthusiasm for supporting additional climate policy, (2) will agree to rehearse with you the lobby meeting in advance, and (3) will agree to stick to the meeting agenda and the asks determined by the lobby team leader.
When the scheduled lobby meeting is on Zoom including a trusted messenger on your lobby team is an especially good idea because no travel is required.
Following are some steps to take to prepare a trusted messenger to participate in a lobby meeting.
- Start by getting them up to speed on CCL. Discuss CCL’s volunteer advocacy work and our policy agenda. Then be sure to go into detail on our nonpartisan approach to lobbying. For example, we treat every congressional office with respect and appreciation. And we thoroughly prepare for our scheduled meetings with the congressional offices. You’ll likely want to include an experienced lobbyist in this prep work.
- Get the community leader up to speed on the primary and secondary asks for the lobby meeting.
- Ask your community leader if they have a story about how climate change has impacted their business, location, employees, home or family. If appropriate ask the community leader to be ready to tell the story in 2 minutes or less during your lobby meeting. And practice in advance.
- Finally, working with the liaison or lobby team leader, rehearse the meeting with the community leader. Doing a mock lobby meeting with someone playing the role of the MOC or staff is a fun and effective way to rehearse.
- Be cautious of including a community leader who might end up being partisan or might go off on a tangent on their own issue.
How else can community leaders show their support?
- Post their support on social media and tag their Congresspeople
- Write an op-ed or co-author an op-ed with a volunteer in your chapter
- Write an open letter to their member of Congress
- Schedule a personal call or Zoom call with their member of Congress to voice their support for a specific policy
- Introduce you to other influential community leaders
How can I highlight my community leaders' support to inspire others?
- Write a post on CCL Community’s forums
- Post it in your own social media tagging your community leaders and Representative/ Senators
- Write an LTE that cites something in the news related to their letter and mention your community leader's support of the relevant policy
- (0:00) Intro & Agenda
- (2:30) Why Grasstops to Influence your member of Congress?
- (4:00) What is a trusted messenger?
- (13:28) How to identify trusted messengers
- (19:17) Our editable template letter
- Todd Elvins
- Ben Pendergrass
View the Google Slides presentation.
Download the video.
- (0:00) Intro & Agenda
- (2:30) Why Grasstops to Influence your member of Congress?
- (4:00) What is a trusted messenger?
- (13:28) How to identify trusted messengers
- (19:17) Our editable template letter
- Todd Elvins
- Ben Pendergrass
- Download this episode (right click and save).
- Find similar episodes on CCL’s iTunes channel.